


Comfort

by Weaqq



Category: The Legend of Zelda
Genre: Angst, F/M, Ocarina of Time, Oneshot, Starcrossed Lovers, zelink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 06:05:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17197925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weaqq/pseuds/Weaqq
Summary: All Link ever needed was comfort, all Zelda ever wanted was to be that.





	Comfort

He often wondered if he loved her.

 

Throughout his duties as captain of the knights, Link would often think of her. Though he would limit his thoughts of her to nothing other than that of a princess. Regal and elegant. Diplomatic and kind. Link respected Zelda as royalty as well as his superior, and anxiously awaited the day she would ascend to the thrown. Knowing she would disappoint naught and bring Hyrule a new age of prosperity and peace. There would be few things so rewarding and fulfilling as the pride he would have on her behalf after watching all the struggles and heart-aches. She held wisdom and maturity beyond her years, even when they were children. Though he was often forced to remind himself that though they spoke the same and looked the same, this was not the same Zelda he had shared the experience of Gannondorf with. This was not the same Zelda that he watched with an ache of failure in his chest as she rode off with Impa on horseback with the knowledge he had been too late. This was not the same Zelda who disguised herself as Sheik in order to assist him on his journey. This was most definitely not the same Zelda who he fell in love with.

 

Yet she was capable of all the same things, even capable of somehow wrapping him around her finger all the same. Though somehow Link still found the audacity within himself to wonder if he loved her.

 

He often told her stories of the Zelda he had known during his time as a hero, though she would always insist he was still a hero, and she was the only one he ever told. The only one he ever thought would believe him; and she did, she believed him. “I always had a feeling I had known you forever.” Was all she would say to him when he told his stories. The soft smile that would appear on her lips made him feel whole, and provoked the thought that his trials had truly been worthwhile. Though he felt as if she knew, that he missed that Zelda, as if she knew he wished for a different outcome or wished that he had never been sent back. For he was the sole person as of now who remembered. His suspicions were affirmed the night he had stumbled upon Zelda resting her figure against the castle balcony during his nightly patrol.

 

“Princess.” He spoke gently and in a tone so soft he wondered if she even heard him once it came out, though before he could even think about saying it again she jumped, obviously startled. “Link, I hadn’t expected your route to lead here so soon.” He had always thought his name simple and unremarkable yet every time she spoke it for some reason, he so enjoyed the fact the name was his. “My apologies, though as I’m here and the time for rest grows near, may I escort you back to your chambers?” She smiled at him in a way only she could, and he wondered why his chest tightened. Each time this happened he felt as if he had betrayed the Zelda he fought beside, it was a childish thought and he knew the princess standing before him was indeed Zelda. Yet in reality she was still somebody else. Link was pulled from his thoughts once more when she spoke.

 

“Of course.”

 

They walked to her wing of the castle almost entirely in silence. The only thing in which broke it was when Zelda suddenly spoke. “Link, we’ve known each other since our childhood. Yet you’ve always been so formal,” there was an almost fearful pause and when he looked to her to see what caused that fear she looked up at him with uncertainty. Though eventually she found the courage to say the final part of her sentence, “it makes the informal moments between us exhilarating.” Link knew immediately that the flush in which appeared upon her cheeks wasn’t due to the chill of night air. The sudden warmth within Link made him feel guilty, so he turned away and continued to lead. All too aware of the drop of her shoulders as well as the regret and disappointment radiating off her.

 

Once they made it to her doors he politely bowed, reluctant to leave her side yet anxious to do so because he didn’t know what being at her side alone any longer would cause him to say. The things he would admit. Yet before he could make it five feet away she spoke. “What a pity it is, to be whom you miss, yet not be her all the same. For just a moment, I wish I was her, for you to recognize me as her.” Link stayed still for so long Zelda had probably given up hope. Though when he turned he realized she had been waiting, patiently for an answer, and with that came the realization that he had kept her waiting patiently for so long now. When he approached her the embrace wasn’t desperate, it was simply something that was needed. When they quietly walked into her chambers and pressed their lips together it wasn’t something that was lustful, but something that was adoring. Finally, when all garments had been disposed of and Link hovered over her as their bodies pressed together it wasn’t something that was simply passionate and nothing else, no, it was comforting.

 

Comfort Link never knew he needed. Comfort he never knew he could achieve. A type of comfort he never thought he would come to learn. So when they finished and Zelda looked up at him, sweat at her forehead and breathing heavily, he cried. To the goddesses above he cried, in thanks or in anger, he did not know.

 

Zelda held him close for most of the night.

 

“No one can ever know of this. No one can ever know you were the man who deflowered the Princess.” Zelda had finally spoke as morning grew near, so stern and serious all Link could do was nod into the curve of her neck. Though the tone in her voice wasn’t due to shame, it was due to concern for his wellbeing. Link knew what would come of him if the king ever found out, and knew what would come to Zelda’s reputation once the townspeople found out. So their nights spent in one another’s arms were few, something that was only born out of comfort. Link had convinced himself that’s all this was. It wasn’t until Zelda grew more stressed and finicky in her character that Link began to realize he was convincing himself to be a fool. When his secret visits to her chambers became more frequent, his paranoia of the feelings she was able to pull from him grew. Yet Link continued to simply push it aside and call it comfort.

 

When he would lay awake and watch her sleep, toying with the strands of her hair he would deem it due to comfort. He would say that the way their bodies fit perfectly together had to do with the comfort they brought each other. He was living a lie and the sadness that lingered in the back of Zelda’s gaze when it held his, told him she knew that.

 

So the night she spoke his name much more softly and much more gently than she had before, Link knew whatever would escape her lips would be the words that destroyed him. It was almost ironic, all the monsters in the world could not break the man with an unbreakable will, and yet the beautiful and compassionate princess of Hyrule could do it with only a few words. His eyes had been lingering at the silky sheets which covered her breasts as his hand idly rubbed circles on her shoulder. He marveled at how soft her skin was, biting his lip in concentration. Her hand finally raised to rest itself upon his cheek, so when he looked up and caught sight of her gaze his own raised to place itself on top of hers. _In_ _comfort_. The thought repeated through his mind like that damn owl repeated his words.

 

“Link.” He felt his heart break before he knew it was broken. “My father is growing old, he’s been sick more often than either of us care to admit.” Link knew this, he was aware of it, of course he was. As the trusted captain of the knights, he was one of the first to know of the sickness that had befallen his king. The ill health they still refused to speak of to the public. When Zelda’s lip began to tremble as she attempted to find her words, Link pulled her hand to his lips to kiss her knuckles. “He... his time to leave this world is coming.” Her eyes watered and Link once again was at a loss for how she continued to show him what it was to want to hold someone so badly. Yet she somehow regained the strength she was taught to keep as a princess. Something that told him this would be all the worse for him. “He believes that it would be unwise to tell the kingdom of his poor health in such uncertain times.” The way Zelda said ‘uncertain times’ filled Link’s heart with a fear he had never known. A fear he hadn’t even felt when he entered the well of Kakariko village.

 

“He thinks the news would be better received if I was wed,” Link’s heart sank, “that way the people would know the King and royal family shall live on. In me and my children to come.” He wanted to tell her to stop but he couldn’t get the words through his tightening throat. “I’m going to start entertaining suitors, to find myself a husband.” He wondered if he shut his eyes and covered his ears like a child if this would all go away. “Link, we can’t do this anymore.” He wanted to tell her he loved her. Link wanted to tell her that he figured it out, why his chest fluttered and stomach was in knots when she was near. Why when he recalled the couple in the central of town and thought of the man telling his wife that she was more beautiful than princess Zelda, Link couldn’t help but think him crazy. Why he desperately tries to convince himself that their nights spent together were simply out of comfort. All of it because he was simply too scared to say he was in love with her. He was afraid that if he admitted it she would be taken away from him like she was taken away before. Like everything was taken away from him. So when his own body began to tremble and he began to tighten his grip on her hand as if it was the only thing keeping him alive, she cried. When he opened his mouth to say the words, her cries turned to sobs that she drowned out by burying herself into his chest. He could only make out the words “I’m sorry” being mumbled into his skin over and over again.

 

He had to say it though.

 

He had to say it at least once.

 

“I’m in love with you, Zelda. I’ve always been in love with you.”

 

This time, when he was the one holding her as she cried for the rest of the night, Link wasn’t in denial. He didn’t try to convince himself that all of it was simply out of an attempt to comfort.

 

He simply asked himself if it would have been better, easier, had he never loved her.


End file.
